Lani Guinier Still Fighting to Make Every Vote Count

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, May 3, 1998

LIFT EVERY VOICE

Turning a Civil Rights Setback Into a New Vision of Social Justice

By Lani Guinier

Simon & Schuster; 336 pages; $25

The "civil rights setback" Lani Guinier refers to in her title is, of course, the debacle of her 1993 nomination as assistant attorney general for civil rights. It provoked a furious attack in the press; in a "litany of alliteration," she recalls, she became a "Quota Queen," "Loony Lani" and the "Czarina of Czeparatism."

What all the cute labels had in common was a complete distortion of Guinier's actual views. Perhaps because her work consisted of dense law-journal articles on Voting Rights Act litigation that few if any reporters and op-ed writers had read, they all missed her central point: She was opposed to racial gerrymandering in voting districts.

Shortly after the nomination disaster, Guinier pulled her articles together into a book, "The Tyranny of the Majority," to explain her ideas. Safe voting districts for minori ties might be the conventional goal of civil rights lawyers, she argued, but they were a political dead end for their supposed beneficiaries. What good does it do to send one or two African Americans to a city council or a state house where they will certainly be outvoted? How does that give blacks, or any other group, an effective voice in the political process?

Latest entertainment videos

You Need To See The Romantic Place Where Prince Harry & Meghan Markle Fell In LoveTownAndCountry

A Countdown to the 13 Most Expensive Celebrity Dresses of All TimeELLEDecor

In Honor of Taylor Swift’s Birthday We’re Showcasing Her Best Moments of 2017!MarieClaire

Selena Gomez And Justin Bieber Won’t Be Spending Christmas Together And More NewsMarieClaire

Hair Diary with Celebrity Stylist Kristen EssHarpersBazaar

Meghan Markle Has Always Used Her Voice For Advocacy And CharityMarieClaire

The 7 Most Romantic Celebrity ProposalsMarieClaire

A Reporter Asked Justin Bieber If He Plans To Propose To Selena Gomez Soon And The Singer Broke Into The Biggest Grin And More NewsMarieClaire

Nicki Minaj Can Literally Drop Jaws In Any OutfitMarieClaire

Instead of safe districts, she urged civil rights lawyers to look at "cumulative voting," a form of the proportional representation systems used in many European democracies, as well as in corporate shareholder voting. Unlike "winner take all" systems, her system would give minority groups -- not only blacks, but any group that can't quite muster 51 percent of the ballots -- representation in rough proportion to its numbers.

With her new book, Guinier takes a big step back from the law journals and writes broadly enough that even a pundit can get her point. "Winner take all majority rule . . . has assumed a sacred role in American democratic mythology," she argues, but its effect is to discourage too many people from voting. Where cumulative voting has been tried instead -- in Illinois until 1980, in conservative Staten Island, and in a rural Alabama county that elected its first woman and its first Republican as well as its first black under such a system -- these people are brought back into participation. "Democracy takes place when the silenced find a voice."

In short, Guinier has turned a litigation strategy into a universal proposal for rejuvenating American democracy. She writes with more passion than rigorous analysis, and leaves no room for argument about whether a remedy for the black voters of Chilton County, Ala., is appropriate for the rest of the country. But she has certainly put her finger on some real problems and come up with an intriguing idea to address them. If nothing else, her new book should put to rest the idea that proportional representation is for blacks only.

Guinier has another point to make about her experience, one that many activists have forgotten since the '60s: Don't get caught up in the insider game. It's fine to have access to a president, but a civil rights group gets its strength from its foot soldiers. The marchers in Selma, and not the lobbyists, got the Voting Rights Act passed. Thirty years later, Guinier's nomination went down to defeat because her colleagues, trusting Clinton, held back from summoning their supporters.

How this came about is, of course, the juiciest part of the book. Guinier is hard enough on the civil rights establishment for its eagerness to be a team player, but her account of how badly the "timid president" conducted himself is unsparing. Clinton told her face to face that "I don't have a problem with what you are saying" and announced minutes later on television that her views were "antidemocratic." "If he can't stand up for a friend, who will he stand up for?" she wants to know.

Now Playing:

A few months later, when the Congressional Black Caucus invited Clinton and Guinier to its awards banquet, the White House suggested that perhaps she could be given her award privately, or on a different day. Her tale of the frantically negotiated compromise -- they were seated at opposite ends of the room, and the president left before Guinier received her award -- is as bitingly funny as anything in "Primary Colors."

Like many who have been through a rough time, Guinier tells more about her feelings than most of us need to hear. But she does understand that they aren't the point of the story. It's the rest of us, who must "lift every voice and sing" until we are heard.

Latest from the SFGATE homepage:

Click below for the top news from around the Bay Area and beyond. Sign up for our newsletters to be the first to learn about breaking news and more. Go to 'Sign In' and 'Manage Profile' at the top of the page.